Monday, January 21, 2013

Devlog: "Conanbowl"

(lighting / color test with random NPC mobs)
Me and Eddie decided we should make a game this past / current weekend. It started with our usual process: clicking "random page" in Wikipedia until something strikes us. This time, we were struck by "The God in the Bowl," a Conan the Barbarian short story where Conan has to solve a murder (?) when he's actually there because he wants to rob the museum, but then a ghost kills a bunch of people?

Anyway, this concept resonated with us: an adventure-ish game where you must steal things and solve a case; you're a kleptomaniac detective in Victorian-ish London, and you're assigned to cases where you're actually the thief.

Or something like that.


The concept is still pretty blurry. We start by painting broad strokes: Eddie coding / implementing the rough mechanics, and I'm researching art / level design. However, we've largely abandoned the goal of finishing the complete game this weekend, and we're settling for a "point and click" art Thief milestone in 1 small level.

Art-wise, I'm basing the museum architecture off of the National Gallery in London. The characters are based on the character in the Unity "Mecanim" demo, modded to resemble some Victorian caricatures by some random illustrator named R. Hibbert -- I can't find any information on this guy -- and I liked his choice of colors / proportions / patterns. Basically, something Dishonored-ish, but more in a Gangs of New York direction with less brush strokes / texture everywhere. Flat colors and gradients work well.


We still don't really know what to call this game yet. Probably the detective's name. When we decide what to call the detective. Until then: "Conanbowl."

PS: the Mecanim demos in Unity 4 are pretty fun to watch...